Studies elucidate cause and pathogenesis of chronic degenerative CNS disorders with emphasis on MS, ALS, parkinsonism-dementia, Parkinson's, Pick's and Alzheimer's diseases, Huntington's chorea, supranuclear palsy, other presenile dementias, chronic encephalitis with focal epilepsy, muscular dystrophies, chronic schizophrenia, SSPE, PML, dialysis encephalopathy, and intracranial neoplasms. Even familial, apparently hereditary diseases may be slow virus infections. Subacute spongiform virus encephalopathies (kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob (CJD) diseases of man; scrapie and mink encephalopathy) are caused by unconventional viruses with unique properties posing important theoretical problems to microbiology and molecular biology; a major goal is elucidation of their structure and mechanisms of replication. Transmissible virus dementias are increasingly recognized worldwide causes of death: high incidence foci, transmission by corneal transplant or brain surgery, and occupational hazards from exposure to brain occur. In order to determine the usual mode of infection with the virus, a worldwide epidemiological study of transmissible virus dementia (CJD) cases is underway with special attention to familial clusters of cases and with a quest for possible relationship of scrapie of sheep to the human disease.